The Palestinian Authority: Existence and erasure for Israel’s benefit

by Ramona Wadi

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (C) chairs the cabinet meeting in Ramallah, West Bank on November 26, 2024. [Photo by Palestinian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images]

The Palestinian Authority seems set on maintaining its illegitimate rule. As PA leader Mahmoud Abbas makes plans for a future in which his post is vacated, he named vice-president Hussein al-Sheikh to assume the presidency for an interim period of 90 days, after which elections should be held. Elections have not been held since 2006.

Abbas’s choice of al-Sheikh extends the PA’s current colonial complicity. His name is synonymous with the PA’s security services and collaboration with Israel. A July 2023 article in Foreign Policy opens with accolades for al-Sheikh on account of his being welcomed at Israel’s Defence Ministry, while juxtaposing his earlier resistance activities with the curated image of a “Rolex-sporting, globe-trotting official” that works to prevent the PA’s collapse. None of these adjectives remotely address the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle – many Palestinians suffer economically and their freedom of movement is severely curtailed or obliterated completely. 

Looking towards the colonisers and their international accomplices is what renders the PA’s existence relevant. Earlier this month, during a meeting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, al-Sheikh stated, “We have confirmed out readiness to work with President Trump, Mr Blair and the partners to consolidate the ceasefire, the entry of aid, the release of hostages and prisoners, and then start with the recovery and reconstruction.” 

Such endorsements from the PA, of course, are not uncommon. It must be stated, however, that maintaining the PA’s existence also contributes to the erasure of the Palestinian people.  

Al-Sheikh and the PA endorsed Blair’s Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA) Institutional Structure, which eliminates Palestinian participation in their political process. Indeed, external actors seems to be the key phrase for Blair’s plan, and the PA is mentioned vaguely, with no time frame, as the entity which would eventually oversee “the eventual unifying of all the Palestinian territory.” What territory is the GITA document talking about? For the international community and the PA, such a sweeping statement makes for good publicity. For the Palestinian people, who are living the reality of colonial dispossession, colonial violence and genocide, territory is becoming an illusion. Blair is proposing an extension of the illusory government that maintains the PA’s existence; Al-Sheikh and the PA will not refuse a lifeline, however temporary, that secures them from immediate collapse.  

But the focus should be the Palestinian people. No matter how much the mind conjures up the PA as being synonymous with Ramallah, as Western diplomacy has publicised, Gaza has been affected by the PA’s sanctions to force Hamas into relinquishing power in the past, while the PA’s security forces beat Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who dared to protest against the policies. Israel’s genocide in Gaza was based upon the same premise. But in both instances; the latter at a much greater price, Palestinians were rendered more vulnerable not only to colonial violence but to foreign diplomatic interference. 

The end result is always territorial gain for Israel. While the PA continues to appease with purported reform – changes that entrench the current power dynamics under a different guise – Palestinians face erasure, in terms of territory, memory and people.